Awatea '09

Awatea Cabernet/Merlots '16

A wine that exhibits the best qualities of great Hawke’s Bay cabernets/merlot - intense aromatic berry fruit characters, a rich mid-palate and a supple tannin structure. Awatea is a full flavoured wine that can be enjoyed over 8-10 years.

Te Mata Estate believes this to be the finest Awatea it has produced to date.

Awatea ’09 is a blend of 45% cabernet sauvignon, 40% merlot and 15% cabernet franc. It will continue to evolve in bottle, providing great enjoyment up to 10 years from harvest. It is a natural partner for savoury red meat dishes and hard cheeses.

Technical Analysis

Winemaking

The separate parcels of grapes were destemmed before a traditional warm, plunged fermentation and extended maceration on skins. The resulting wines were then run to new and seasoned French oak barrels for 18 months’ ageing. Throughout this time, they were regularly topped and racked. The separate wines were blended in January 2010, then returned to barrel for their second winter. The finished wine was then egg white fined and bottled in November 2010.

Vineyards

The grapes for Awatea ’09 were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s vineyards between 19 March and 14 April 2009.

Origin

Awatea takes its name from the historic ship SS Awatea (a Maori word meaning “Eye of the Dawn”) that sailed the Auckland – Sydney – Wellington route in the late 1930s. The Awatea was requisitioned as a troop transport in WWII and was sunk off Algeria in 1942.